Chelsea boss Frank Lampard knows there's players talking behind his back.
And the manager has laid down the gauntlet to those complaining as he attempts to snap their form slump.
Lampard considered, "Player power can be two things, it can be a good thing and it can be a bad thing, and a lot of times in my time here at club, when you have a strong squad of players in their prime performing at the top level there will still be dips but they have personality and they dig in and and find a way, that's what players do at top clubs who are successful time and time again.
"Where we are at the minute means we have been off the pace in terms of winning the Premier League for a few years so we're not in that. When you're in a rebuild you're searching for anything that can help this squad grow because as it's growing there are tough times, they have to react and get over it. Then there's another tough time and they have to react and get over that.
"The players have to do that, so for me I'm looking closely now at the players, as I look at myself, because the players will do it on the pitch but I'm always at the forefront of it, to find how they react and dig in as a group because a lot of them are young, some are very new, it's a big ask to ask young players and players fresh to this club to be like the players who have been here for many years and seen it all before. Other teams around in the Premier League have that, we do not have that, so that's the first part of player power."
Lampard also reasoned: "The players that are wanting to play, some of them will use that for really positivity but some not so much.
"Maybe some will speak behind backs because that's how life is, I can't be concerned with that. All I can say is the players here I feel have a real desire to get out of this mini run of bad results and I can see that in them.
"If there are players that don't have those concerns to get out of it then they have decisions to make, and if there's opportunities that players leave it will have to be right for them, for myself and for the club and then that can happen. But if not we keep fighting and moving on because they want to play and contribute and I want to tap into the positive side of that."
